Billy Dunavant, Memphis cotton exec, lover of sports, dies at 88
Gayle Rose remembered the letters. All of them.
They came in the mail every Friday for three or four months after her son, Max, died in a car accident in 2009. They were from Billy Dunavant and his wife, Tommie. Rose had never heard of such a gesture.
“It wasn’t just a card,” said Rose, the founder and CEO of EVS Corporation. “It almost makes me cry thinking about it because it touched me so deeply. They knew the level of grief that I was engaged in was going to be long, and one card wouldn’t do.”
The city of Memphis is grieving again this weekend, and one card won’t do this time, either.
William B. “Billy” Dunavant, the Memphis-based business executive who turned Dunavant Enterprises into the world’s largest cotton broker, died Saturday morning in Salt Lake City after suffering a “sudden event” at his Montana home earlier in the week, according to his son, Bill.
Dunavant was 88.
He will be remembered as a massive presence around Memphis, who used his unprecedented success in the cotton industry for the betterment of the city, contributing to many local causes and community projects, particularly in the sports world.
“He was a great Memphian,” said Bill Dunavant. “He was so proud of our city and his focus and his dream was to make Memphis, Tennessee a better place.”
Billy Dunavant took over his family’s company in 1961 and helped transform it into a global enterprise.
He made the first sale of American-grown cotton to China in 1972 and the largest individual sale — and largest sale by any company — in history to China in October 1990. Before his retirement in 2005, Dunavant then completed the second-largest cotton sale in history — a $225 million gross sale to China.
Dunavant is also credited with recruiting Ducks Unlimited to move its world headquarters from Chicago to Memphis in 1992.
“Mr. Dunavant is a conservation icon, legendary for his business acumen and dedication to leaving the world a better place,” said DU CEO Adam Putnam. “Mr. Dunavant’s philanthropic spirit and civic passion led the effort to bring DU National Headquarters to Memphis in the early ’90s. His leadership and vision ensure a conservation legacy that will outlast us all.”
Longtime DU volunteer and current First Vice President Chuck Smith said. “I have never known a more fierce, focused, and competitive man. Billy Dunavant was always a gentleman. He was a DU guy through and through; his passion for DU and the city of Memphis perfectly positioned him as the leader in relocating DU’S national headquarters to Memphis. His legacy will continue for decades.”
Dunavant He was part of a generation of corporate titans and philanthropists — along with Fedex’s Fred Smith, Autozone’s Pitt Hyde and the late Mike Rose of the Holiday Inn Hospitality Group — who worked behind-the-scenes to help promote and push Memphis forward.
“They did a lot of things quietly, raised a lot of money, and made things happen for the city,” Memphis Tourism CEO Kevin Kane said. “Billy always had what was best for Memphis in mind.”
“He would be the leader in basically any charitable effort,” added Autozone Liberty Bowl executive director Steve Ehrhart. “He would say, ‘You need to put up because I’m going to put up.’ Whenever there was a need in the community, he would be there.”
“What Billy did in business and sports is well documented, but his philanthropy went well beyond what anyone knew. If it happened in Memphis, Billy was involved,” former Memphis basketball coach John Calipari wrote on Twitter Saturday.
Dunavant’s most public endeavors revolved around his love of sports.
An avid outdoorsman and a competitive golfer and tennis player, Dunavant owned the Memphis Showboats of the USFL in 1984 and 1985 and led the charge in the city’s quest to land an NFL franchise during the 1990s.
Ehrhart, who served as president and general manager of the Showboats, said it was Dunavant who made sure the Autozone Liberty Bowl stayed in Memphis when it ran into issues almost 30 years ago.
Dunavant was also the longtime owner of the Memphis Racquet Club and brought the U.S. National Indoor Tennis Championships to Memphis in 1975. Spearheaded by Dunavant, the tournament eventually featured tennis stars like Jimmy Connors, John Mcenroe, Bjorn Borg and Andre Agassi.
“During the Showboat days, he challenged Reggie White to catch punts. When Bobby Riggs was in his prime, they had some money bets,” said Ehrhart. “He was a great athlete and so competitive, and that carried over, whether it was in business or dealing with the community.”
Dunavant, a Memphis State graduate, was inducted into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 2015 and was a member of the inaugural class of the Memphis Sports Hall of Fame in 2019.
Bill Dunavant became CEO and President of Dunavant Enterprises after his father stepped down, although Dunavant remained chairman of the board until he died.
“Really a towering figure even though he wasn’t a towering man,” Gayle Rose said. “He possessed obviously so much business sense and skill and demanded that kind of respect. But beyond that was kind of his unique humility for someone with that much power and wealth.”
Dunavant is survived by his wife, eight children, 22 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren, who are the eighth generation of Memphians within the family.
Funeral arrangements are still pending.
“There is so much to celebrate,” Bill Dunavant said. “Anybody in the world would be envious to live his life.”